Hello, everybody, and welcome to this week's episode of Trek politics. It's great to have you here.

I'm Mary Trump with my friend and co-host, Bob Susska.

Hey, Bob. We have what I think is going to be a fabulous episode because of the episode of Star Trek,

the original series we got to watch this week.

Most definitely. As always, Mary, spoilers ahead.

This week, we're talking about the ultimate computer from season two,

written by the great D.C. Fontana, based on a story by Lawrence and Wolf and directed

by John Meredith Lucas. In this episode, Star Trek predicts AI.

The enterprise is assigned by Starfleet to test Dr. Richard Daystrom's M5 Multitronic

Computer, which has the potential to replace the entire crew of a starship, forcing our

heroes to question whether they'll have a career or be replaced by automation.

Daystrom installs and activates the M5 aboard the

Enterprise, which will be tested in a war game scenario against Commodore Bob Wesley's Starship Lexington.

But things go horribly awry when the M5 fails to understand how war games work and attacks

both an unmanned or freighter than several

Constitution-class starships killing hundreds. Yes, it's another Star Trek episode with a

self-aware, megalomaniacal supercomputer. And as I said, this is a cautionary tale about AI

decades before AI existed, Mary.

It's an incredible episode.

It's complex.

And we are going to cover all of it.

So buckle up.

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